Three Justices of the Court of Appeal and their counterparts at the Borno State National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal have been dragged to the National Judicial Council, NJC, over alleged misconduct.
In a petition addressed to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, who doubles as the Chairman of the NJC, the petitioner, Sesugh Akume, a political analyst, alleged that the judges of the tribunal as well as the Justices of the Court of Appeal engaged in misconduct while arriving at a perverse judgment in the Borno South Senatorial seat case.
The Justices of the Court of Appeal named in the petition delivered to NJC are Justice Biobale Abraham Georgewill, Justice Folashade Ayodeji Ojo and Justice Peter Chudi Obiora.
They were alleged to have delivered a perverse judgment in appeal No: CA/G/EP/SEN/04/23, on November 2, 2023, in the Abuja division of the court.
Also petitioned are the three Judges of the Borno State National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, who dismissed the petition No: EPT/BOR/SEN/02/23 in Kudia M.Saluman & PDP V INEC, APC & Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume.
The judges listed in the petition are Justices M. E Anenih, A. I Ityonyiman and O.A Adeniji.
The petition which was filed under the Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2016, and Section 2 of the Code, alleged that in the said election petition judgment, the Judges arrived at many conclusions that the Court of Appeal found to be perverse and repeatedly stated so on the record.
Among others, the tribunal was said to have held that further evidence provided in the response to a counter affidavit, filled by the opposing side, was inadmissible for being filed out of time as it ought to have been filed from the onset.
It was also said to have further held that any testimony given by an individual perusing document tendered was ‘mere’ hearsay so long as the individual was not physically present when the documents were produced.
The petitioner listed several cogent findings by the Tribunal and wondered why it allegedly summersaulted in returning the 3rd respondent (Senator Ali Ndume) as the duly elected Senator for Borno South.
He also alleged that aides and supporters of Ndume had details of the tribunal’s judgment and shared the outcome of the judgment in the morning of September 8, before it was read in the afternoon.
In the petition obtained by DAILY POST, Akume alleged that the Court of Appeal in its perverse judgment dismissed most of the findings of the tribunal but in the end, still upheld its judgment.
“The Court of Appeal, for instance, held that the appellants did not prove a case of forgery, mutilation, defacing of results sheets having seen the forged, mutilated, defaced results sheets, or how the hundreds of forged, mutilated defaced result sheets, affected the outcome of the election.
“The court held to stringent and impossible requirements to prove the same even though forgery has repeatedly been defined to include altering an original document.
“The Court of Appeal at page 42 of the judgment, per Georgewill JCA, conceded that: ‘I find the evaluation by the lower tribunal of the evidence of Pw1- Pw47, the evidence of Rw1, and the totality of the evidence led before it by parties, was flawless and the findings and decisions on the merit of the claims of the appellants against the respondent are unassailable and must be allowed to stand.
“And yet, the same Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the tribunal. It is judicial abracadabra as this which makes no meaning to the average person that continues to bring the judiciary to disrepute and erode confidence the public might have had in the independence, integrity, impartiality, and respectability the judiciary in Nigeria had.”
The petitioner therefore called on the NJC to investigate the complaint and bring the offending judicial officers to book.
